DUBAI // Two men who attempted to kidnap a woman by grabbing her by the hair, gagging her and threatening her with a knife had their two-year sentences reduced to six months each at Dubai Court of Appeal on Wednesday.
Despite having a knife pointed to her stomach, RM, a Bangladeshi domestic worker, put up fierce resistance against her two countrymen, DD, 26, and SM, 40, and managed to escape.
Prosecutors said she was waiting for a bus to work at 5.45am on October 30 last year when one of the men gagged her and restrained her while the other ordered her to keep silent while pointing a knife at her stomach.
The men tried to drag her to a nearby car and push her inside but she fought back and threw herself to the ground, breaking free from their grip before screaming for help.
The woman said that as she screamed, one of the men put his hand into her pocket and stole Dh100 before they both ran away. She also spotted a third man sitting in the driver’s seat of the car they tried to force her into.
Minutes after her attackers fled, the woman’s bus arrived and she took it to work, where she told her manager what had happened. She was directed to the police station to file a report.
At 6pm the same day, as she was returning to her home using the same bus, she said she saw the men standing near the bus stop, so she called police and they were arrested.
“They tried to escape but we caught them,” testified police officer EA, who added that they confessed to the crime and said they did it because one of them suggested that they could earn money by selling the woman.
The two attackers were convicted of attempted kidnap and armed robbery, which they denied in court. Dubai Criminal Court sentenced each of them to two years in jail but it was reduced on appeal. However, their deportation orders were upheld.
salamir@thenational.ae